Chana Bloch Poems

We're trying to strike a match in a matchbook
that has lain all winter under the woodpile:
damp sulphur
on sodden cardboard.
...

I hung my wedding dress
in the attic. I had a woolen
shoulder to lean against,
...

Words slip from me lately
like cups and saucers
from soapy hands.
I grope for the names of things
...

Sometimes I want to sink into your body
with the fever that spikes inside me
to be a woman
who can open a man.
...

A man after sex
has that squishy thing in the nest of his lap.
A bashful appendage
like a Claes Oldenburg vinyl drain
...

after Anselm Kiefer

Lately we've begun to talk logistics,
to draw up contingency plans
...

Apprehended and held without trial,
our friend was sentenced:
brain tumor, malignant.
Condemned each day to wake
...

We remember the rabbit when we see
the duck, but we cannot experience
both at the same time
...

1

FAT
is the soul of this flesh.
Eat with your hands, slow, you will understand
...

"Make flour into dough," she answers,
"and fire will turn it into food.
Ash is the final abstraction of matter.
You can just brush it away."
...